Lesia Ukrainka’s church burns down

Christmas Day 2007 will forever remain a tragic date for the residents of the village of Voloshky, situated near Kovel in the Volyn region. That day the unique wooden church of St. Nicholas, built in 1845, burned down. A local resident phoned the firemen, but it was too late. When the fire brigades arrived, the church’s domes were already burning.

The church in Voloshky was unique not only because of its age and architecture. It is dear to Ukrainians as the church where Lesia Ukrainka used to pray. She mentioned this in her letters to Ivan Franko’s wife on Oct. 15, 1894. These letters reveal that Lesia wanted to marry Klyment Kvitka in the church in Voloshky, but her future husband’s illness prevented them.

The village of Voloshky is not far from Kolodiazhne, where the Kosach family estate-museum is now based. According to historian Mykola Teodorovych, the villages of Voloshky and Kolodiazhne belonged to a single parish in the late 19th — early 20th century. Voloshky was owned by the Polish assessor Chykylevsky, and Kolodiazhne — by a state adviser named Petro Kosach. There are documents in the Volyn state archives that attest to the fact that Kosach’s younger children — Oksana, Mykola, and Izydora — were baptized in this very church.

People say it is a miracle that the church burned down, but one icon escaped destruction — namely, the sacred image of Nicholas the Wonder-Worker. However, many precious icons were destroyed in the fire. One of them was another icon of St. Nicholas, which belonged to the Volyn school of iconography of the first half of the 18th century.

Candles left burning in the church are thought to be a possible cause of the fire.